


All My Tomorrows

by Butterfly



Series: Scenes from a Resurrection Story [5]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Fix-it fic, Gen, Julia Wicker/23rd Timeline William "Penny" Adiyodi (minor/mentioned), Kady Orloff-Diaz/William "Penny" Adiyodi (minor/mentioned), Quentin Coldwater/Alice Quinn (minor/mentioned), Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh (minor/mentioned), Quentin Coldwater/Margo Hanson (minor/mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 18:00:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18665512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterfly/pseuds/Butterfly
Summary: Kady calls a meeting.





	All My Tomorrows

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings for talk about suicide, depression, and specific suicide attempts. I debated whether this qualified as 'teen' or 'mature' and fell on the side of over-rating as opposed to under.

“What do they want for it?” Kady leaned back against the counter, bracing by her elbows. “And, no, for the _eighth_ time, I'm not telling you why I need it.”

Pete sighed and shut his mouth with a grumble. He glared up at the ceiling and said, “I'm pretty sure I could work a better deal if I could give them a reason. Interdimensional bullshit gets you into some strange places, even for people like us.”

“Look, just find out what they need and we'll work the deal.” Kady looked past Pete, over at the living room and out the windows of the penthouse. Jesus, she felt like she could almost fucking see Coldwater's ghost hanging out. At least Penny had never lived here, not her Penny, the _real_ Penny. She still got chills whenever she had to go to Brakebills. She felt a buzzing at her hip. “Shit, I gotta take a call.” She waved a hand at him dismissively and took off for her bedroom, slamming the door behind her and tossing the card onto the bed, quickly doing the receiving tuts.

“Hey!” She froze up a bit. She'd known that it would be Penny calling, but the surprise of hearing his voice still rippled through her. “There's been a small-”

“Who'd you call-” Okay, _that_ was definitely Coldwater.

“It's... it's one of Kady's cards-”

“Kady? Oh, hey! Hi, Kady!”

“Give me that back, you little shit!”

“Kady! It's Quentin! Good news! Well, good and bad, I guess. But- but the good is that I think we can break Penny's contract. When Zelda dicked him over, she violated a subclause, um. It's way deep in the contact, page 243. You need Kelliger's Legalistic and Contractual Magic in order to properly-”

“Coldwater! Update her on _your_ shit, not on mine. And give me back that fucking card!”

“Oh, right! So, we're kinda being chased by security goons. Um. Also, I've been checking everywhere and there's, like, an eighty percent chance that I'm not going to be able to remember the Underworld when you bring me back, at least not at first. And that's- um. That's not great news. I was in a pretty shitty place when I died. My brain was, I mean. Ask Julia about fall of 2012, and tell her it was worse than that. I hope things are going well on your end! And check out that book – Kelliger's Legalistic and-”

“Stop getting distracted by-”

Their voices cut out abruptly. Kady didn't give herself time to process – she knew she didn't have long to respond.

“Hey, losers, thanks for the update. We've got the blood and we're working on getting the Malicot book. Alice is in charge of creating your body, because apparently it helps that she's seen you naked recently or whatever. Coldwater, things have been kinda mopey and shit without you here, so. I'm glad we're getting you back. And if we get Penny back, too, then I guess that wouldn't suck. Anyway, good luck with your shit down there. Take care of each other. Don't- huh, I don't need to warn you about not dying. Try not to get into too much trouble. See you when you get topside.” She had more time, technically, but nothing else to really say, except maybe... “Penny. Um. I hate that I still miss you. So. I don't know. Fix that.” She twisted out the closing tut and watched as the Jack of Spades lost the deep richness of its black ink and went to a faded gray. She ripped up the card and tossed the pieces in the trash on her way out of the bedroom.

She glared at Pete. “The fuck are you still doing here?”

He raised his hands defensively as he backed away. “Leaving right now.”

As soon as he was gone, she pulled out her phone and sent a text to Twenty-Three: _hey. group meeting asap. news from underworld._

Then she went and poured herself a fucking drink, because she needed it.

Twenty-Three dropped Julia off first, because they'd probably been together when he got the text. There was still a little bit of an inner eye-roll about that, but nothing like how it used to feel to see a version of Penny giving someone else bedroom eyes. They were only alone for a minute or so, barely enough time to say hello, when Twenty-Three popped back with Margo, Eliot, and Alice, all in a little group. It was... it was really strange, honestly, the way Eliot and Margo acted around Alice these days, like she was an actual friend of theirs instead of Coldwater's on-off girlfriend who'd fucked them all over. The part of Kady that had once been Sam Cunningham poked at her to investigate it, but the larger part of her that was _Kady_ didn't really give a fuck so. It would stay a mystery.

“You heard from PennyForty?” Alice asked, her voice high-pitched and her body one long line of tension. “Another update about Q?”

“I heard from them both,” Kady said, looking the group over – Eliot immediately reached towards his pocket, patting the solid shape where she could just make out the outline of his cards against the fabric of the coat.

“But I thought that wasn't safe,” Julia said.

“They're on the run from whatever passes for security in the Underworld,” Kady said. “So, that's one piece of bad news. The other one is... Coldwater doesn't think he'll remember being dead. Or maybe it'll take him time to remember it.”

“How is that a bad thing?” Twenty-Three asked, raising a hand questioningly. “I mean, seems like having some time to ease him into it would be good.”

“He said something about the fall of 2012,” Kady said, looking straight at Julia, who flinched, _hard_ , and let out a little breathy gasp like she'd been punched. Twenty-Three turned his head towards her, his entire body leaning in her direction, but he didn't reach out. “I guess that's about where his headspace was at when he kicked it this time.”

Julia brought her hands up to her mouth and sat down on the couch.

“What happened in 2012?” Alice asked, sitting down next to Julia on one side as Eliot sat down on the other.

“I may have an idea,” Eliot said, gripping the head of his cane convulsively. Alice's eyes flitted between Eliot and Julia, anxiously. Eliot took in a deep breath. “Was that- um. Julia. Was that the time he took the-”

“The sleeping pills, yeah,” Julia choked out. “He had to have his- uh. His stomach pumped. He almost- almost died. But. Uh. He never admitted to doing it on purpose so. We _knew_ , of course we did, but his mom said he was just trying to get attention and it never- yeah.” She collapsed back on the couch like a puppet with cut strings. “How could things have been _that bad_ and I didn't see it?”

“None of us saw it,” Twenty-Three said. “It's not all on you, Jules.”

“Isn't it? I was the one _here_ ,” she said and there was a bitter, bitter venom in her voice now. “I was the one who saw him... who heard him say, say he was too tired to care if the monster strangled him to death.” Kady straightened a little in surprise. He'd said _what_? “But I just- I was here and I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything.”

“Hey, hey, he wouldn't want you to hate yourself,” Eliot said gently, wrapping an arm around Julia's shoulders as she cried and cried into his ever-present black coat. “You know he wouldn't.”

“You weren't the only one who should have seen it,” Margo said, sitting on the arm of the couch next to Eliot. “I came back, so damn proud of my axes, and I didn't see it either. He's one of my best goddamn friends and I was more focused on getting-” She shook her head abruptly, cutting herself off. “Look. The important thing is we know now. And when we get him back, if it's bad, we can take care of things. It's not too late. Not when we live in a world of fucking magic. So. Caring and sharing hour done? We ready to get back to business? Sounds like it's become a little more urgent if Coldwater and PennyForty are dodging guards down there.”

“We have a lead on the book,” Kady said. “I should be able to have it soon. Will the body be ready?”

“We... we have been having a slight difference of opinion,” Alice said, a little stiffly. Margo rolled her eyes and Eliot sighed.

“I'm an _expert_ on this particular subject-” Eliot started.

“Okay, my memory is a little hazy, sure, but I'm pretty certain-” Margo said, at the same time.

They glared at each other. Alice bit her lip.

“Is this about parts of Coldwater that I don't wanna have to think about?” Kady asked. None of them looked at her. “Because I really don't give a shit if his cock is true to life. Just get it done, okay. He'll deal with having a wonky one. Lots of guys do.”

“It would help if any of us had _actually_ seen him naked more recently than a year ago,” Alice said, with a sigh.

“Wait, the two of you weren't banging again?” Kady asked, despite herself.

“We hadn't gotten around to it yet,” Alice said, primly, then she deflated a bit. “He wasn't exactly in the mood. Not that I realized why.”

“He probably couldn't get it up,” Margo said, with a jerking-off hand gesture. “Depression-brain and all.”

Then the three of them all sat there and made sad faces about Coldwater's dick and Kady just... she looked over and ugh, Julia was kinda giggling in an almost-hysterical way but- but huh. Twenty-Three was the only person who looked _exactly as distressed_ by this conversation as she was, so she took a step towards him and said, “Please, for the love of baby Jesus, get me out of here before I'm forced to hear another word of this bullshit.” That got a laugh out of him, and he glanced around really quickly and took her hand and-

“Ugh, why here?” she asked, staring at the Brakebills' lawn.

“Hey, you didn't specify a location, and I've got a question to ask one of the teachers here. I'll be back soon if you need to go somewhere else.”

And then the asshole just blipped out. Just like that.

Kady growled, crossing her arms and glaring at the nearby cluster of students, who scattered.

Then, after a moment of consideration, she headed towards the school's library.

She was almost there – almost there and then she spotted Henry Fogg and... okay, she'd look up the book for saving Penny in a minute, because she had a fucking bone to pick. She turned and went at Henry full speed and he swayed a little as she stopped in front of him.

“Hey, you watched us for forty lifetimes, right?” Kady crossed her arms together, holding back the temptation. For now. “Right?”

“Correct,” he said, and she could smell the booze already. “Did you have a specific question?”

“Yeah. Coldwater off himself in any of the other timelines?”

Henry hesitated. She raised an eyebrow. He sighed. “If you mean whether or not he died performing some heroic gesture, then it happened on _multiple_ occasions and never led to anything good, just another reboot.”

She tilted her chin at him and glared.

“Ah. There was... yes,” Henry said. Kady nodded, uncrossed her arms, and punched him in the fucking jaw. He staggered backwards, half-lifting a hand in defense and then, after a moment, lowering it.

Kady shook out her hand. “That's all.”

She turned and walked away.

She had a book to find.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a lyrics from "Just One Yesterday" by Fall-Out Boy.


End file.
